MetSatIV’s other capability, that of detecting small craft atmospheric penetration, didn’t concern CPO Gurnach either. At last report, the only ships insystem were, as always, Regular Space Service vessels. A hostile landing would have to come from a hostile deepspace ship, and there weren’t any. Why worry about a hostile landing? Besides, Polar 1, now at the south end of its orbit, carried sensor arrays designed to spot any intrusive traffic; MetSatIV was really redundant.
Martin-Jehore knew it was crucial to keep MetSatIV offline for five hours or more. He did not know why, nor did he care. He had convinced himself that it was probably a matter of smuggling something really profitable (given the size of his payoff), and he didn’t think smuggling actually hurt anybody. So what if some porn cubes got past customs without paying duty?
Chapter Sixteen
The attack came on a dank gray afternoon, with thin rain spitting out of a low sky and visibility just reaching from the parapet of the exercise courtyard to the administrative offices. Gelan Meharry had outside duty, and had checked the first three posts when he found that number four was missing. Even as he thumbed the control on his comunit, he felt the prickles rising on his arms. Not at night after all, but with enough daylight to see if his body caught on any of the rocks.
“Spiers here,” came the answer to his call. Spiers, whom he had not seriously suspected.
“Number four outside post’s empty,” Gelan said. “Should be Mahdal—has he called in?”
“No, Corporal. Want me to check sickbay?”
“Request backup at this post,” Gelan said. “And run a com check on the others, would you? Then check sickbay.”
“Sure thing.” Spiers’s voice sounded normal, with only the slight concern appropriate to a missing sentry.
Gelan looked around. Number four post gave its occupant a view of the prisoners’ exercise court, the entrance block beyond, the upper part of the administrative block overlooking the forecourt, which was itself out of sight, and the peak of the stack itself rising beyond that. To his left he could see the helmet of number three post; to his right and down, on the outside of the entrance block, he should have seen the bright dot that was number five.
He didn’t. He leaned out over the parapet of number four, to check the path below. There, far below, a bright yellow splotch, and a white dot near it.
He used his com again. “Spiers, this is Corporal Meharry again. There’s a man down on the westside path. Have you raised number five yet?”
“No, Corporal.” Now Spiers did sound worried. “Sergeant says he’s on the way. Want me to call Medical?”
“Better do it. I’ll go on down and see . . .”
As the blow fell, he lunged forward, so that his skull took less than the intended blow. The unexpectedness of that lunge loosened his captors’ grip, and he got in another good shove as he went over the edge.
For an instant, hanging in the air with the sea spread out below him, he was euphoric. They hadn’t knocked him out; he’d fooled them. He was going to make it; his plan would work.
Then he was close enough to see the height of the waves—mere wrinkles from above, here taller than he was, and smashing into the sharp rocks. And no helmet, he thought, just as he plunged into water so cold it took his breath, with force enough to nearly knock him out.
He fought his way to the surface by blind instinct, helped by the surge of the rising tide. When he shook the water from his eyes, he saw a black wall rushing toward him, covered with sharp shells. He threw out his arms; the water slammed him into the rock with crushing force, but the PPU gloves protected his hands, and then his body, from the sharp edges of the shells, and the wrist grapples locked onto the surface. When the water dragged back, he was able to stay on the rock. In that brief second, he curled up, jamming his boots into a crack, and deployed the PPU’s lower grapples.
Cold water roared over him again, smashing him into the rock, then sucking his body away . . . the grapples held; his arms and legs strained. In the next trough, he released the wrist grapples, flung himself upward, and locked the wrists again just as the next wave hit.
Minute by minute he fought his way upward, racing the tide and the limits of his own strength. Distant clamor battered his hearing, even over the roar and suck of the waves. He looked upward, only to get a faceful of cold water.
Just above high tide, well within the splash zone, he clung to the rock. Despite the PPU, he was chilled; without it, he would have been dead. He could feel his arms and legs stiffening from both cold and bruising, and out there somewhere . . . the killers were looking for him.
Gelan stripped off the last of his duty uniform, ripping it free with the grapple claws of the PPU. He hoped it would look like the damage of sea creatures if the killers spotted it. Underneath, the PPU’s programmable outer surface took on the mottled dark color of the rock . . . now if they looked down, they would see only rock, not a splash of yellow. He unhooked and unrolled the hood, and pulled it over his head. At once he felt better; the hood cut the windchill. He sealed it close around his face, then pulled up the facemask. The last bite of the wind disappeared. He wasn’t comfortable, but he was no longer in danger of hypothermia. Not soon, anyway.
He touched the controls on his chest, and the PPU’s circuitry delivered a boosted audio signal. Another control released a fine antenna to pick up transmissions.
“—Went over right there, sir. No chance to grab him—and he went right down—may’ve hit his head on a rock—”
Darkness closed in early. Gelan could see lights above; he waited until they were gone, then longer: they would be scanning in infrared as well. Though his suit reflected almost all his body heat inward, to protect him from the cold, a sensitive scan could pick up a human shape in movement. But well after local midnight, he moved—stiffly at first, then more smoothly—toward the lava tube where—he hoped—his survival kit was still concealed.
Once in the mouth of the tube, he risked a brief flash of his torch. There it was.
And there was Commander Bacarion, a weapon levelled at his chest.
“I thought they might have underestimated you,” she said. “I didn’t.”
He said nothing.
“I will be glad to take your ears,” she said. “I might even send one to your family.”
The thought of Methlin’s reaction if she got one of her little brother’s ears in the mail made him grin in spite of his fear. “Do that,” he said.
Then tossed his torch aside and dove toward her dominant hand, and used the suit grapples to catch and fling himself in a tumbling arc toward her. Her weapon fired, but the needle went wide. Gelan pivoted on one suit grapple, and slammed both booted feet into her side; he felt the crunch of bone and heard her grunt, but it was dark now, and she wasn’t dead. She would have more than one weapon.
He scrambled towards her, raking with the suit grapples. A thin red beam appeared, the rangefinder of her next weapon, and the sharp crack of a hunting rifle turned to the clatter of falling rock where it hit. Gelan felt something with one glove, and yanked hard; she cried out, then something slammed into his shoulder. He swung elbows, knees, feet, and took hard blows himself, barely softened by the suit. Then the blows weakened; he hit again and again. And again.
Silence, but for the sound of his own breathing, and the pounding of waves outside the tube. Was she dead, or feigning? Had she been alone? He fumbled around, trying to find the torch, but finally gave up and used the suit’s headlamp.